Jordan Peterson: When the left goes too far — the dangerous doctrine of equity

Do we really believe that these large-scale equity interventions are necessary and, even more naively, that they would solve more problems than they would cause, Jordan Peterson asks. Getty Images

Social justice is known as equity in opposition to the letter of positive law.

As such, equity is characterized by the use of impartiality to recognize each person’s right, using equivalence to be equal. On the other hand, equity adapts the rule for a specific case in order to make it fairer.

Thus, the Mantra of Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity is perhaps the main identification factor of the small minority of radical collectivist ideologues who, nevertheless, have come to dominate the humanities and social sciences in Western universities. “Equity” is a term designed to indicate “equality”, in some way, and is a term designed to appeal to the natural human tendency towards impartiality, but does not mean the classic equality of the West, which is equality before the law. and equality of opportunities.

Likewise, equality before the law means that every citizen will be treated fairly by criminal justice and judicial systems, regardless of their status, and that the state recognizes that each individual has an intrinsic value that serves as a limit to the power of attorney state and that the policy owes respect.

Complete difference

It should be noted that equal opportunity is an opening doctrine based on the fact that talent is widely distributed, although it is relatively rare. This should not surprise anyone, given that some people are much better at doing a certain task than others and, because of that, it is in the selfish interest of all to allow that talent to appear in the foreground so that we can all benefit. This means that no one should be arbitrarily denied the possibility of their contribution for reasons unrelated to the task in question.

Meanwhile, it has been established that equity is a completely different ballgame. It is based on the idea that the only certain measure of “equality” is the result: educational, social and labor. The drivers of equity axiomatically assume that if all positions at each level of hierarchy in each organization are not occupied by a proportion of the population that is precisely equivalent to that proportion in the general population, that systematic prejudice (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) must be at stake.

There is simply no excuse for this doctrine. Its advocates virtually never attend or discuss the occupational areas where the greatest sex differences exist. They do not care at all that there are multiple well-documented reasons for unequal outcomes in the occupational choice and payment, in addition to the counterproductive role and genuine bias that still plays.